Spinning, Spinning, Spinning

I say summer, you say winter. I say autumn, you say spring. It's starting to make me feel a bit giddy whirling through the seasons this way! I'm quite sure time is now moving twice as fast since I've been blogging! I have been trying to imagine my world without seasons & the thought overwhelms me..a door shuts & the light goes out. I am bereft. So much of the beauty that I daily seek is carried in the momentum, the flow as one season gives way to the next. The seasons mark out life through every age..how tragic to be a child & not be anchored in the wisdom & knowledge of the changing seasons. What have we at the end but the peering forward, the leaning out the window in hope, for just one more glimpse, one last taste of life.
In our autumn here it all comes by the dozen...

& more,

 whether fruiting or flowering, even nakedly.
(naked ladies also known as belladonna lilies)

 Passionfruit...one of my most favoured flavours. Come to think of it, I don't believe I've actually ever met anyone who doesn't like passionfruit.

It only occurred to me recently that you could, in fact, cut the top off one & scoop it out rather than cut in half & have half the juice escape. I love eating passionfruit just with a spoon or sometimes squeezing them straight in to my mouth...oh heaven. Do tell me how you like to eat passionfruit the most.

I have found a few sweet greengage plums this week & one or two black boy peaches. I had forgotten how exceptionally hairy that they are, the peaches...I almost want to pat them! 

 A pretty perennial salvia (I think). The flowers remind me of a red salvia that we used to pick as kids & suck the "honey" out of the bottom of the flower.

 Oh pansy you are so lovely.

 I also can't imagine not hanging my washing on the washing line..outside! Yet I know for many reasons there are plenty of people who don't manage it.
I suppose if all your laundry was ugly it wouldn't look particularly enchanting..Nanna pants & blokes trousers, holey old rags don't have quite the same appeal, but the Marks & Spencer cardi I found at the Op Shop will do just fine.

 I truly feel as if I hardly get out much just at the moment, but I did find a minute to pop into Connections this week..I could hardly believe my eyes when I found this gorgeous bag..

 and with a name like Cherubini!

I have come to love pressed & depression glass & discovered Carnival glass a while back..the sparkly, colourful cousins of the glass department, but I had never seen anything Carnival glass in pink before so when this bowl came up on Trade Me I bought it.

Isn't it so pretty? 

 Soft & pretty is so good for my soul..

 ugly has to happen sometimes though! No, not Rob silly, the rot in our house.

I am learning that it is so easy to be frustrated that we do not know more right now, but if we practice & we keep at it, some day, one day, we might actually have the skills to do a good job.

Rob has worked so hard at repairing our home & he is doing a marvelous job & loving it & feeling proud of himself to be able to draw on some really useful skills & some assertive brain power & is making good use of a lovely yellow crayon.

 This wonderful old book has come in very handy indeed.

 So of course I bought him valentines! They are a cross between an apricot & a nectarine. I've not seen them before but that's the last of them from Bellatinos for now, so I will look out for them again this time next year.

 Ted suggested that you should see the cape gooseberries too. Aren't they so cute the way that they make their own wee paper packets.

 I love comb honey. I read that if you eat local honey that you can often relieve allergy symptoms like hayfever. Well guess what?...it really does work! I was experiencing increasingly nasty bouts of hayfever but am doing so much better after a year or so of including more honey & some propolis in my diet.

 I came across a beetroot dip in a River Cottage cook book this week.Oh it is so delicious!

 Well here's to autumn in our neck of the woods & to you..sweet friends. (Cider...I am thinking of having a go at making that next).
 I have had a lovely visit with my boy.. & a hug.. & plied him with risotto & rockmelon, filled his back pack with fruit & watched him cycle off, with a much more settled maternal heart. Thank you so much for your concern & prayers on that one. It's not aways easy making our way in the world is it?

Have a wonderful week dear ones.

MUCH

 ♥♥♥♥♥

Moments, Gifts and Who knows What's Around the Corner

Life is so uncertain, so untied down. 

What is here and good and dependable right this moment, may be gone or broken or different tomorrow. All we have is this moment, because we truly do not know what lies ahead of us in this life. 

Who would have thought that we would have had such a strange un-summer this year of 2012?

And that a weather bomb would deluge & tear at our little nation with such ferocity, yanking off roofs, uprooting trees & slashing at the land over the weekend?

I was completely taken aback that number 2 son having come & settled, quite suddenly departed in haste this week, for his own troubled reasons. I'm sure he'll get hungry for real food some week any time soon.

Fortunately the weather held off a little here yesterday morning, allowing just enough time for St Luke's to get through their Church Fair before everything got too miserable. I found this beautiful fishing creel in the antiques department. I wonder who it's belonged to? What adventures it's been carted about on? Perhaps the Willows chaps can shed some light on that one.

At St Vinnie's, on a quick visit, I found this adorable "dog" blanket. Even the label alone is just precious & the colour deeper blue than my pictures...a perfect wedgewood kinda blue.

 It was a pansy week this week..

 these two were forlornly waiting on a table side by side with the tacky riff raff..quite the wrong department for them; velvet backed & lovingly stitched.

 This little brooch was cheap & chipped & therefore so much more useful in it's life well lived-ness.
These darling foxgloves are embroidered in the corners of two serviettes & might be well incorporated in a future creation.

I do love the autumnal revival of pansies & heartsease, the heralding of summers end (as if we didn't know that for ourselves) not particularly fond of the heat, they perk up once more before the chill of days to come.

 Rob bought me these glorious dahlias as we were leaving the fair..so kind of him & the wonderfully generous people who strip their own garden's in order to make their contribution to the corporate endeavour.

 I have found a summer bolster in my own bookshelves. I do love the Brambly Hedge illustrations, so much astonishing attention to detail. This lovely wee book belonged to my Uncle Pete..he's been gone a year now.

 A perfect summer meadow wedding.

 I almost missed the autumn raspberries..

 There are still a few nectarines around. I thought that they matched my op shop scarf find extraordinarily well, don't you think?

 I have sent for more tumeric. I am thinking of new ways to preserve it & eek it out as it comes a kilo at a time. Neither we, nor the courier, suffer any identity confusion now when the parcel arrives addressed to "Keith" I guess that must be what my dear Indian friends hear when I say that it is "Catherine calling form Hastings." Fortunately the street address is always correct.

 I am learning to make apple cider vinegar. I wish someone had told me long ago how simple it was to make. This is it..organic apples..peel & cores, water, jar, time..presto!

 Have you ever seen a tomatillo? (pronounced tom o teo) They are mexican in origin & quite interesting. I like them roasted with peppers the best. Vege rather than a fruit & with faint hints of cape gooseberry flavours when cooked (not sweet though).

 Back to my unpredictability...the child suddenly departed or ill. The unexpected challenges to a marriage or friendship. The horrendous unexpected event...the crushing of my dearest friends husband in a logging accident a month just gone (he is still alive & the badly injured leg has been saved, but will be in hospital a long time yet)...& she who gave me the perfect unblemished journal at the year's beginning.

 And the card of true words & friendship..

 I am so grateful for her & truly blessed by you & your visiting & your reading & your conversation.
Thank you so much for being here..

Truly all we have are moments, this day...

MUCH

 ♥♥♥♥♥

The Queen Of Golden

and the green, green grass of summer!

Our paddocks & hillsides are still verdant, a most peculiar state of affairs.

 I do know that it is in fact late summer as the golden queen peaches have arrived, along with the omega plums & naked ladies in the garden. As I was contemplating these seasonal visitors, I wondered to myself just how long golden queens have been around for? As I recall, everyone used to bottle back in the day (when I was a child) 20lb or 40lb cases at a time.

 I made two discoveries through my pondering. The first, that we have a New Zealand encyclopedia called TeAra & the second that, 

"The Golden Queen is reputed to have first been grown in New Zealand in the garden of a Mrs Reeves in Tauranga. Velvety skinned peaches were once popular for bottling."
Now would you just look at that...and me being a Mrs Reeves & all!

 It is time to gather some firewood..well have delivered. Bit of splitting to do but it's lovely wood. Old man pine they call it.

 The cranberries are ripening up nicely but won't last long as they are right near my washing line & smell so enticing. They are known as the New Zealand cranberry on occasion & also "Mrytus Ugni"...not sure that is quite the right title for a successful marketing ploy, however.

 In my fossicking around this week I found this oil pouring can & the butter yellow handled knife or implement sharpener. The little chap was an excellent find considering we have a master sharpener in the house presently. What a huge difference it makes to have properly sharpened knives. Anyone fancy borrowing The Boy?
Rob discovered the wee green clock amidst the abundance & fluff of a stall at The Bazaar on saturday morning.

 Apparently our local SPCA is in dire financial strife & may not be able to continue past the end of the month so I am more than happy to support their new op shop just down the road..which is where I found the green teapot. I feel that my macadamia nut cracking hammer might like to reside along with other useful implements in the oil can.

 If you can find macadamia nuts in their shells they are fun to crack & so much cheaper to buy. Being a little skittery & on the fiddly side is a good thing...stops you eating too many at once.

 I thought that this was a perfect addition to the kids book shelf in the sunroom. I just can't help feeling a little queasy though looking at all those screeds of hose...rather reminded me of intestines, ok saghetti then!

 I love the look on the dog's face.

 Oh yes, found a Sanderson cushion at the Bazaar. The inner is filled with duck down.

 I have been making kefir for quite a few months now. No, I hadn't heard of it before either. It is the easiest thing in the world to make & I like it a lot more than yoghurt. Turkish in origin I believe..well not mine obviously. I began with a powdered starter from the organics shop, but now, just make the next batch from the last one.

 Just pour the milk in to the clean jar, add a tablespoon from the last jar, cover & leave on the bench till the next day...done! Pop in the fridge. Kefir is packed with really helpful bacteria & has a much softer, more digestible curd than yoghurt.

 When I bought some fish during the week I noticed a bag of very cheap fish heads & bits. I have never actually made fish stock before so I decided to follow the motto from the "Origin Earth " people at the Farmers' Market
"Try something that scares you everyday" & I bought the bag of fish...heads. Eeew eyeballs & all.
Next, I stopped in at the library to return some books, had a quick check through the just returned shelves & noticed "The River Cottage Fish Book." I opened to a page & what should I read , but how to make fish stock..only took half an hour & didn't smell too fishy either.
My other grand find was "Grow Your own Drugs...a year with James Wong."
David & I are plotting all kinds of concoctions from this wonderfully inspiring book.

 I have had so many people asking for more Luisa plums..never seen them before.. bit scary to some people. But once tried best loved.

 One old dear asked Rob, "What are they liked stewed?" He wasn't too sure on that one so I thought I'd better have a go...what astonishing colours. Quite unexpectedly tangy I must say, but wow what a plum for jam!

You might have noticed these little coconut balls peeking out of a little container a wee way back. I am learning to use organic coconut oil. In that journey I came across a great little recipe which you can find just here if you're interested.

 I have a sneaking suspicion that this isn't a children's book that I bought the other day. Perhaps best not read it to my nephew, but thought you might enjoy a couple of excerpts, even if you don't love cats.

  Have a wonderfully tiddily week.
Lovely to see you.
MUCH

 ♥♥♥♥♥